Short Fiction

Snake Charmer

 She loved the way the snake curled around her V-neck sweater, his hard diamondback pattern shifting in the sun. It was unseasonably hot for early November, and she could smell its animalistic odour, like her own sweat. She liked the way it felt, slick as oil, its firm sliding muscles, tense and locked now, ready to spring – to strike.

    During the year the townsfolk had a picnic and a contest to see how many diamondbacks they could pull out of the ground. There were prizes for the heaviest snake, the longest snake, the first one caught and the last one caught.

    Georgia won first prize for the smallest snake, naming him Flush. Flush was only twelve weeks old, so she started to train him and knew that later he would be entered into the pit. The “pit” as it was commonly called was a feast of snakes, all writhing, crawling, twisting over one another. The men bet on how many rats, mice and red meat each snake could eat. Usually it was Rattlesnake Queen who won every Saturday, consuming four rats and five mice, sometimes more.

    Georgia hoped that Flush would become the big boss in the pit, taking home the prize.

    However, weeks, months passed and still Flush remained small.

    Matlock, Georgia’s husband said, ‘You have to feed him some of those ghost rats, the white ones with pink feet. That’ll bulk him out.’

    Georgia opened the spring-hinged door at the top of the cage. She sat the rat on the door, letting it ratchet inwards. The rat plopped to her feet, her long pink tail ticking back and forth like a clock counter. Flush, coiled in the corner, a tiredness in his demeanour, rippled slightly. The rat sat upright and began cleaning her underbelly with rhythmic and graceful brushes.

    Georgia hissed at Flush. ‘Go boy, lunch!’

    Inquisitive, Flush uncoiled and seemed to be caging the rat with his right eye. The rat darted forward and sat on Flush’s head, then ran down the length of his body and back again, as if carrying out a daily massage.

    Georgia, her legs almost folding underneath her, watched on. The rat was not trembling or frozen in fright, instead it patiently licked Flush’s face. In some divine fancy or adoration, she used a circling motion over his mouth and eyes like a gentle lover.

    Georgia heard Matlock’s footsteps and called out. ‘Take a look at this!’

    Matlock looked down into the cage, instead of Flush opening his jaw to swallow the rat, his darting tongue surged forward, as if ready, in response, to cleanse the rat’s head.

    ‘I can’t understand it,’ said Georgia. ‘I know a lot about animals, about fully-grown snakes eating rats, about us eating rattlers, our yearly round-ups, but nobody, nobody in this great southern town could tell me that a rat and a diamondback would EVER become friends!’

 ∞∞

The Collector

In the distress of turning eighty-one and losing her driver's license, Marjorie was forced to walk to the shops every day for groceries, to the bank, chemist or her most important stop, Good Sammy's.

    In previous years she hadn't noticed all the street litter scattered throughout her town. Her journeys had always been viewed from inside, on plush leather seats, with the immensity of the landscape flashing by from tinted windows or through windscreen wipers on foggy, winter mornings.

    On foot, she walked past rubbish that was left where it couldn't possibly find its own strategy to leave. Mostly, the littered items were cigarette butts, plastic bags, bottles, packaging and take-away food containers. In the local park she felt the hooded presence of vandalism: broken glass, graffiti, and two swings left twisted into an inaccessible knot on the top crossbar. Marjorie cared that the broken glass was dangerous, especially for school children, other elderly pedestrians and the local tom cats.

   It annoyed her that on rubbish days, the wheelie bins overflowed with smelly foodstuff, attracting the crows. 'Look at this,' she allowed herself to call out. 'Bread crusts, tomato ends, soggy paper, sticking to my good shoes. Be damned!'

   She carried small amounts of shopping back from the supermarket and an extra rolled bag for the rubbish. In her exuberant way it was to avenge those who littered. With her full water bottle, she washed the exterior of plastic bottles or cans, and also rinsed her fingers before placing a dirty carton or chocolate wrapper inside.

   Each day she went shopping, she picked up litter that was in her reach, and returned with it. Each day it was a collection of recycling: paper scraps, plastic, Big Mac polystyrene. Marjorie avoided the broken glass for fear of cutting herself.

   When she arrived home, she opened the garage door and threw the full plastic bag inside. It landed with a clunk on top of the car.

   She squeezed back the front door. Everything was inert and too big to pass by, so she climbed over a stack of junk mail, cardboard boxes, pizza boxes and newspapers. After she had put the cold items in the fridge, Marjorie felt the comforting seasons of everything accumulated. The deceptive tenderness of handmade cushions, crochet, children's clothes, stuffed toys, quilts and embroidery. She sat down on a giant bag of clothes that was plumb with junk mail, old catalogues and kitchen cloths. She picked up her knitting that spread the length of the sitting room, and struggled with the red wool that had snared behind the couch.

    Tired from her day's collecting, Marjorie groped her way upstairs, moving slowly step over step as one does over a thousand dangers. She lay on her double bed, dominated with the forlorn glad-rags of time; the empty shapes of coats, skirts, blouses, furs, hats and dresses and fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

 

The Old Man

He wasn't always old. When young he won his school's one-hundred metre dash in under three minutes. He rode motor bikes, built model airplanes and lathed and varnished jarrah tables. That was then. Now his wife had died and his children were overseas. He knew no one in the convoy of early morning walkers and only had the company of his shadow when circuiting the park. There were days that had little strength, a few dog owners drifting past, nodding, some crooning about Pippa or Bluey, others less impassioned about the weather. When they were gone there was nothing more to add. It would have been easier just to ring an empty bell. At night he watched TV, its flashes of coloured light and noise livening up the room. He watched one program and had the idea to visit his local tavern.

    The main bar was dark and musty, mostly men his age seated on stools. On Friday nights he went along hoping to meet a new friend, but one regular, who had previously spoken, continued to crouch over his beer, the glass propping up the sadness in his face.

    Come this Saturday, the bartender said. We get a good crowd and usually a country music band. You'll have fun.

    The night wasn’t what he expected, and it brought a change to his face. A younger crowd greeted him. Handshakes and shoulders touched like a bridge. And like a crossing, he encountered the simplicity of conversation over a round of beers. He noticed, above the hubbub of music, laughter and voices, all the young men sported beards. They were impressive, neat and tidy, colourful and not at all housing breakfast crumbs, toothpaste or foreign bodies.

   It's the new rage, said one fellow. Why not grow one and join the club?

   He went along every Saturday night. Why hadn't he thought of wearing a beard before? In all his eighty years he had lathered and shaved, rinsed and patted.

   Overnight the hairs inched forward beginning as little brown wisps. He looked like Benjamin Disraeli. When it had grown and bushed out he resembled Sir John Forrest. On days when it grew long and unkempt he was Gandalf.

   The young men invited him to car trials, quiz nights, beard contests, and to zero birthdays. Mostly, it was a thirtieth or fortieth and the talk revolved around shapes, styles and colour. There was the Johnny Depp, the David Beckham, the Santa Claus, the goatee, the short-boxed and the stubble. His head heard words like 'soul patch, terminal and mouche'. The men told him about a city barber where he could have his beard trimmed and coloured, but if he couldn't afford that, there was the beard trimmer at K-Mart.

   Each morning as he splashed water on his face, he gazed at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was not a bristled Anthony Hopkins, but staring back between a neatly trimmed moustache and Silverfox beard, a smile formed.

Burst Water Tap

There's a bubble coming up in the hallway carpet. The residue of a flooding.  Things exploded before that. The laundry tap had seized. The plumber came by and I had previously turned off the water mains.  Not so! Instead I had turned the outside tap to full. Roger unscrewed the cold water tap in the laundry and Niagra Falls came gushing in for a short visit. Good thing Roger had on his safety coveralls, otherwise he may have drowned. There was a rush of water all over the walls and floor. The water even crept into the toilet.  After we had secured the mains to off, and the two washing machine taps getting a makeover. For example, sealing tape and a man's know-how, everything subsided. How handy was it, that I had a cupboard full of towels.? Thirsty linen sucked and drank. It was a day of hilarity, ten towels swaying on the line, a squelsh of shoes over the hallway carpet and  Roger saying when he left. "Thanks for the shower!"

 The Nightly Surveillance

He goes out at night and occasionally sits on the brick wall. He's there to keep intruders at bay. He's not your ordinary protector, no gun by his side or flashlight to wield over the heads of strangers. This fellow is attentive, vigilant, and being pint-size he often attends to his coat. Mind, there are no buttons or pockets on his left or right side. No string, rubber bands, cigarette lighter, fags or keys to fumble about with. He wouldn't want to jingle when he walked. No. That would give the game away. He once had a bell, but it got caught on a tree branch and so it fell to the ground along with his other neck accessories. He doesn't wear any jewellery either. Too bright! Too shiny at night! Although very late when the clock hand jumps to twelve there is some singing. It's like karaoke, a terrible off-key arrangement that hasn't been practised. He is often joined by other amateur songsters. Together they all sound terrible and sometimes the sound is menacing, truly bone chilling, enough to upset two neighborhood dogs. Their one saving grace is that they share things, the park, bases of trees, biscuits and the nights full of stars. Afraid of storms, lightning and thunder our nightly prowler can be seen, tail extruding from under the bed - a real scaredy cat.

Return to Idyll, Avon Valley

You’d forgotten the dimpled hills, stumped houses, tomahawks cleaved in wood. At the end of journey from Reid Highway to Toodyay Road, a gravel drive drops slightly, dividing homestead from orchard. Wheels rock to a stop and memory returns, old troubadours since past, someone’s seduction. The gardens girdle the lush paddocks on three sides. Cockatoos rise up from the flat of the land, a farmer bends for breath, and wood-smoke rises over boundary and fence beyond the fire's first lick. Artistry and quiet have brought you here; time sprawling as a fox might slink lengthwise across a road. The house is an L-shaped bungalow of twelve rooms, the aesthetics of slow-flame, an old reminder of cottage craft, teddies and lavender. Windows override dining tables warmed with sun. Clouds mesh with treetops overhead and the land runs grazed with sheep and lama. How easy it is to go back to this house in winter, the old clearness of Maple leaves, waiting for ripeness on the trees. A spiny gecko runs the brickwork, lengthening his stride as he goes. Lonely? Hardly, while you settle into rocker, occupy each sunroom. You decide to walk later, knowing the neighbour’s dog will unwind its chain, a herd of Suffolks will rise from their folded legs. Horses might gather close to the fence, wait for a proffered hand. What happens is a pattern, the next day, a visit to the battlement of a bridge, pre-war style, engineered never to cleave. Ten years it’s been since you circled the labyrinth, its pathway of stones. You were meant to be solemn and silent, but you heard nothing. Yet, the same rumbling in the mud harkens, a catchment dam where you drizzled chicken pellets, later plunging marron into boiling pots, coming together and parting the flesh. Soon you settle in with a glass of wine, feed dry timber into a combustion stove. Remember the rude laughter of a drunken past. Did you suffer for your art? You think not! The pantry’s the same. So is the kettle for tea, bookshelves with music and philosophy. Lawrence’s jetty he captured for Tidal Town. Reflections croak in the distance, each afternoon a blueprint of the day before. If you’re lucky a blue wren will veer from a hedge, a lama will raise her long neck close to your deck, reticent to shorten the grass. Butcher birds will ring out the bells in their throats, as you relax back into the deckchair of this idyll, comforted by a transitional sky and the granite hills of the Avon Valley.

Rock around the Clock

Under the outside porch, the wind knocks at the windowpanes. You crouch down on the front step, it's comical and the little petals of his pink corsage brown with exhaustion. Your hand shakes, pinning it onto your cardigan, and quickly you rush through the streets to the entertainment hall. Red lights charm musicians' faces. This beautiful kingdom is in the mood, and now it's 'Rock around Clock'. You put your high tail on, flay back, pucker lips, spin in the wave of his arms that dominate the night, tap the parquet floor as if it's the clickety-clack of the train that runs beside the sea. Your shining face is a rose in his eyes. The dance is a handshake like a weapon that pulls you quickly from fear, then back again into the light. Your right leg swings a Charleston side to side. It's a kick high, kick back. What a dance! What a dancer! See how his hands are like handlebars, as he jitterbugs to the right of your body in opposite flight, a two-time double shuffle according to his beat. You follow. He spins, pulls you in, pulls you back, and under as if you're going through town in his white Cadillac, absorbing his grace, his dimpled chin, as he hauls you into a night full of stars, and then the vibrations of the hall subside, and you're back on the porch, with the lights left on. You don't see his hands holding your face, kissing your face with makeup in your eyes, and he goes away, crushing the heavy bushes you've both stepped from, your bobby socks full of burrs. You walk inside, into the rest of the night, tap on the wardrobe, tap on the bed, tap on the headboard overhead, your heart in paradise.

Old Churches

Like scaly frill-necked lizards sitting on a rock, old churches assemble themselves in bush retreats. Weathered and sacrificial, things have flown off: pigeons in the belfry, the roof of the outhouse. They tug at the years like a bell-rope, even the spiders have run out of larvae and moth. The stained windows have stories with lead beading, blues and greens, the colour of eyes that once dipped in prayer. The front door bolts open on wooden pews that line the walls. Ceilings creep upward in silent communion. Porcelain hands like the soft robes of Jesus reach across a domed fresco from Bethlehem to Nazareth. You discern the old settlers were here by their marble tablets, paintings by the Dutch school. The winds have passed through these buildings, coursing leaves and the aroma of earth. In daylight a wagtail or wren will veer suddenly overhead from an open window, tap at water rusted in its turn. When darkness settles on rocks and stones, old churches shrug back into themselves, back into their timber rafters that squeak a thousand Amens. Only horses on the hillside, listening to the charms of trees, will trickle past in ones and twos, find greener pastures under the shade of a plane tree; where once restless girls studied Psalms and the Book of Matthew, and grew up to ride horses, saddled on the hillside.

Man’s Best Friend

The hammer lay on the ground like a heavy paperweight. The feebly constructed gate kept falling over in the wind. Alice knew that two small vegie crates wouldn’t keep the dog in, but she continued with her project, adding cardboard and a pallet given to her by a neighbour. That too, fell over, letting Buster out to bark at the wind, the neighbours, visitors, tradesmen, couriers. After a week of chaos in the new triplex, Max said he’d had enough. ‘We’re going to get rid of the dog.’

       ‘No we’re not. He’s just doing his job.’

      Alice viewed Buster’s antics as humorous, running from backyard to front door, climbing on furniture, gnashing his teeth at window glass. He’d never had so many visitors. But Max couldn’t deal with the incessant barking. ‘We’re going to do the deed, today. I don’t want any arguments, Alice. What if he bites a tenant? This is a business remember. It puts food in our mouths.’

      ‘You take him to the bush, yourself.’

      ‘You have to come with me, hold the dog on your lap. I can’t drive and hold him at the same time, can I?’

      ‘What do we tell the children?’

      ‘What do they care? They only ring when they want money.’

                                                            ♀

After leaving the main road, the car bounced along a furrowed trail. Max had the stereo up loud, playing Back to Black by Amy Winehouse. It annoyed Alice, him thumping the steering wheel to the song.

    ‘Can you turn that off?’ she said.  ‘I’m already feeling depressed about today.’

    Inside the pine plantation, he turned the engine off, slowly easing the car between two trees. The area was filled with neglect; potholes dipped in patches, and on higher ground loose limestone stretched powder-like along a dense tree-line where larger rocks bordered hummocks of pine needles.

       Alice entered the pines like a child would, prodding her feet slowly across the ground as if some animal trap or sucking quagmire lurked beneath. She unclipped the dog’s lead, letting him run further in. The car boot creaked, and Max rattled metal before slamming it shut.

      She watched Buster sniff in the rye grass, cock his leg on the base of several stumps. His scrawny body darted left and right, his coat like the bush around him, grey like coalsmoke. Along Wanneroo Road, then into Pinjar, the colour of passing farms had yielded a dry mustard colour like wheat-fields. Now in the undergrowth of tall trees, the day turned dark slate. The whole pine forest seemed to take on the same hue. When a tree spat its needles onto her shoulder, Alice stumbled down a soft incline. With the help of an exposed piece of metal, she pulled herself up. Clinging to its crossbar, she eased her body around it. Taking two more steps, she discovered buried car bodies mounded like a cairn of tree and leaf litter. There were two cars, the chassis and axle of one, and the other an upended Falcon station-wagon, exposing its rusted wheel rims.  A small eucalypt had managed to flower in between the wrecks, a wild horticultural image amongst tortured metal.

      Alice stood for a moment brushing her skirt, watching her husband in disbelief. Max snorted and spat as he carried the 0.22 rifle over his shoulder, his old Akubra drawn down over his eyebrows, making him look like some bounty hunter. She felt trapped in a bloodthirsty movie. How had they come to this? Why was she meekly going along with his plan? What if he missed when he fired the gun? Thinking now, she wished she’d taken that piece of crate wood — that makeshift fence with a hundred rigid nails — and whacked Max across the back of the neck. Alice’s mind was back in her yard, belting him into the ground, burying him beside the petunias while the animal, tongue lolling with contentment, sat beside her as she sipped a tall iced lemonade.

      But then the day cut its way back in. ‘A simple gate, Max. That’s all.’

      ‘No I said. What is the point spending all that money on a brick wall and jarrah gate, when I’d have to pull the whole thing down? How many times do I have to repeat myself, Alice? The dog is a bloody nuisance.’

      Alice mulled over the last few days, Max pacing the driveway, the ranger giving him a $100 fine, tapping out a warning with his biro. Buster had bitten a neighbour’s child as she bent down to pat him. Later, her face swelling to a bruised third cheek. The little girl glared at Alice on occasions when she left for school. She wished they’d never bought a Silky Terrier. A docile Labrador would have been much better. But when it came to it, he was just territorial, a pint-sized guard dog, not much bigger than your ankle.

      Alice recalled the day when they first collected Buster, going to a workmate’s house, the litter of puppies running around, stumbling in and out of their basket; the feisty one licking her hand. She should have got the last of the females, but the little ball of energy made her laugh. And he’d jumped on her lap.

      Now it was his last day on earth. Hell, she thought, I can’t do this.

      Max said something, but she ignored it. Then he nudged her, rolling two bullets into the palm of her hand. He was already loading. How these things could part and bleed flesh. They looked so innocent. A little gunpowder, a copper casing, a life ending as quickly as saying, auf Wiedersehen. Perhaps that was it, that Teutonic streak in him. It came out now and again like some Aryan dogma he had to follow. Although he denied it, he was like the rest of the Klauss family men, hard and unrepentant, especially when it came to handling women. Max had never treated the dog like a cuddly family pet, and now Buster’s time was up. That was that, die Musik fertig ist, Max had been telling her that all morning.

      They walked silently into a glade and a large field opened up that held the remains of a Massey-Ferguson. It sat clogged with branches, collapsed like an old workhorse. The seat on the tractor sprouted tufts of horsehair between cracked leather and stitching.

       They crossed another limestone track.

       ‘Too exposed,’ he said. ‘I want to go further in, over there.’ He pointed towards the old growth trees, past hedges of new plantings.

      The day darkened with the threat of rain clouds. Lightning hissed and split the sky somewhere over the Wanneroo Raceway. It quaked once and then again soundlessly. Alice drank from her water bottle. The liquid seemed to stick somewhere in the stream of her throat. Suddenly it came back up and she was choking and spitting water onto the ground.

      ‘I feel sick,’ she said.

      ‘It won’t be long now. See those thick woods over there. That’s where we’ll do it.’

      They both stopped, Max holding back the top of her shoulders with his hand. The drone of a two-stroke engine rose and fell away, topping a hill, then disappeared into a gully.

      ‘Damn trail bike,’ he said.

      Max scuffed and stomped his black boots into the pine needles, an angry line of sweat dampening his sideburns. Alice wondered if that nervous tic in his neck was some indication of more trouble. He was flicking out a hanky from his pocket, wiping the band’s indentation on his forehead, replacing his hat and scowling. ‘A person can’t even take a stroll in a bloody pine forest without some hoon trailblazing. On a Tuesday, for god-sake!’

      Max stared at Alice while she dropped her eyes. ‘Bastard! We’ll have to wait until he’s gone.’

      ‘Hide the gun,’ said Alice.

      ‘Why? We could be shooting rabbits.’

      ‘I hate this. Let’s come back another day, please Max!’

      And to herself she was thinking she’d ring the Animal Haven, have the dog picked up straight away. Perhaps, Bill the dog-sitter, they used on holidays once, would know what to do.

      ‘Where’s the dog gone?’ he asked.

      ‘He was here a minute ago.’

      ‘I told you to keep him on the leash, Alice. You can be stupid sometimes.’

      ‘This is not exactly my idea of fun. I’m going back to the car.’

      ‘Oh, so now I have to fucking-well find him.’

      ‘That’s your problem.’

      Alice turned from the deep ruts of pine needles, the carpeted vehicle wrecks, and walked back along the dirt road. She felt slightly disoriented. Where was the car? Then an inbuilt sense gave her the number three. Yes, they’d crossed three tracks. The car was sitting back there on the third road.

      She hurried through the pines, and reaching the second limestone track past the open field, looked back. Max was nowhere in sight. The forest sulked to a dark grey, and an evening mist wheeled its way in. She shivered, feeling the cold air on her arms, slapping herself warm. She wanted to run, but couldn’t. The forest floor was dense, opening up like a part of hair where she trod. She was in the darkest part of the plantation, and the haze continued to wrap itself around the trees like a long grey scarf. She thought she heard a voice, a kind of rustling. She could see a misshapen figure further up.

      ‘Hello?’ she called.

      She swept an arm into the air, and could only hear an eerie fluttering. The haze thickened and the distant trees stood like cold alpine sentries. Alice’s legs ached from standing too long. She shifted from side to side, and wondered why this person was taunting her. Defiant, she yelled out. ‘We’re killing a dog in here, today. What do you think of that? Be careful, he’s got a gun. He might kill you. He threatened to kill me once, if I ever left him.’

      She stood watching, her voice winding down to a pathetic moan. ‘Well go on, disappear then, don’t try to help.’ Then she called out again. ‘He’s got four guns, a double-barrel shotgun, a BB gun, a Smith and Wesson revolver, and a 0.22. It’s a marriage of guns and bullets. Living with a bully! And what do you think I am? A quiet hick-town mouse, huh? Never amounting to anything, huh?’ Alice lifted the fur of her collar, and puffed on her fingers. ‘No, I’m going to university,’ she said, slowly.  ‘Hey, you, over there!’

      Alice grew tired of waiting. And then a bounding sound and a crackle of leaves amongst the pine litter made her stretch her eyelids as if focusing into binoculars. First she saw a large kangaroo, then another with a joey trailing behind.

      ‘Bloody hell, I’m talking to a bunch of kangaroos.’

      She moved away, muttering that they wouldn’t be interested anyway. ‘Would you?’ she said to herself. Along the second track, an iron bed frame came into view, its springs skewed and rusted. Carloads of rubbish lined the side of the track, old televisions, lounges, cardboard boxes, auto-parts, and a spread of mildewed carpet and cracked ceramic tiles. She crossed over onto the final road and could see the car ahead, stark white against the dusty green trees. A loud phalanx of Carnaby cockatoos flew overhead and a strip of sun brightened the ground, warming her back as she walked. She didn’t notice them before, but the car was surrounded with patches of apricot spider-orchids. She gathered a handful, and unintentionally pulled out bulbs, and began shaking the peaty soil from the stalks.

       A loud crack rang through the forest. Its short burst detonating the air like the first whack of a whip, cutting the day in two. First a sharp menacing sound, then a hollow silence followed. Alice leant against the car boot, and slowly slid to the ground, her auburn hair catching on the bumper-bar as she went. She gathered in her pleated skirt, wrapped her arms around her knees, buckling her stomach in. With the finality of the bullet, everything tightened, hands, neck, calves and toes. She shut down, then rocked and heaved and moaned.

      ‘What are you doing?’ Max said, coming towards her from the front of the car.

      Alice, startled by his sudden presence, squirmed, and raising herself up slowly against the car, she let the flowers fall from her hand.

      ‘Don’t ever ask me to get another dog,’ he said.  “That was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.’ He hurled the rifle onto the back seat, and slapped in the car door.

                                                            ♀       

The car bumped its way out of the pine plantation. Alice looked out of the window at the black clouds forming overhead. For a long time, she clutched her hands over her stomach, then started to smooth the creases in her tights, rubbing a peat stain with a wet tissue. Crows pecked at a roadside kill. The sky had turned from a dark slate to coal. She looked at her husband, the composed side of his face, his rigid, faraway stare, and went back to black.

The Colour of Hush

Lesson 6:      Sweet sixteen and never been kissed.

__________________________________________________________________

All the stores disappeared. Alice didn’t feel like working the sewing machine. What was the use of doing all the hemming when her mother could no longer sell her dresses. She wanted to play instead of work. She liked collecting odd specimens of rope, fishing line, or a plastic bucket left over by holidaymakers. Once she found a pair of thongs that flapped loudly on the concrete. Spread out in the sparse Buffalo grass, Alice made little pathways with pebbles, twigs and leaves like a miniature Brownie campsite. At Christmas, she rain-bowed every page of a Disney colour-in book. With her new sixty-four paint-set, she detailed and glazed Plaster of Paris moulds. Standing back and casting her blue eyes over Donald, Minnie, Goofy, Daisy and Mickey she pretended they were part of the St. George football team.

                                                                                ♀

Earlier in the day, Alice had asked to climb the tree house that Jimmy and his mate Fizz had built in the laneway. The cubby had a door, a tin roof and a platform made from dad’s hardwood planks from the back of the shed. They had even nailed ladder-boards up the trunk. But the Smart Alecs were on the deck, yelling, ‘Bugger off, Alice!  No girls allowed!’

‘Up yours then! I’ve got something better to do.’

With the sun sending intermittent silver rays through the backyard trees, Alice heads for the coolness of the shade and a stack of bottles piled along the Chin’s fence-line. She rolls some with her foot, letting the stench of fermented hops leak away. Others dangle wet and sticky labels. She picks out several pint bottles, bearing up the milk sludge to eye-level, wiping the dirt with her hands, clanging the cleaner ones down the path to the back veranda and tank-stand. She can hear the far-off drone of motorboats and likes the way the glass mirrors her big nose and cheeks, the flapping clothesline in the background. She glances at Kevin in his sandpit, making two lane highways with his tip-truck.

Alice’s mother, juggling her golf clubs and buggy into the Beetle, yells from underneath the boot. ‘Alice! Don’t forget to pay the baker. I’ve left the money in the basket.’

She nods, and in the midday heat decides to move her bottles to the cooler westerly face of the tank. She floods the ground with the open tap, sluicing out the sandy dregs before topping up the water.

Holding her stomach tight, shaking, wiping and stacking bottles, Alice nearly forgets to breathe. Mesmerized by the swatches of colour, the changing shades underneath her paintbrush, she doesn’t hear the two boys coughing and backslapping each other behind the outhouse, nor does she catch a faint whiff of their rolled tobacco. She is standing on a crate, lifting the brush, dripping a mass of yellow, red or green goop into the bottles, swirling the water, then standing back admiring her work. There are moments when the bottles resemble Manning’s soft drink stand, Lemon, Lime, Raspberry and Cola.

Alice doesn’t notice the shadows moving across the tall rye grass, her mother unloading the golf buggy, hosing the car, Kevin and the dog running under the spray. She conducts an orchestra on glass, discovering different sounds in the varying heights of water. If she taps the rims, a high note. On the grooves, a low thud. She listens to the pinging sounds of the tank’s corrugations cracking in the sun, and hits the tank-stand’s wooden ledge continuing up the rungs of metal. The melody heightens along with a familiar voice at the fence. ‘They want us at the flat for a minute,’ calls Heather.

Alice squints into the afternoon glare. ‘Which drink do you want to buy, Heather? I’ve got Orange, Lemon or Strawberry Cola.’

‘Alice, the boys want us to play at my place. If we come, they’ll let us climb their tree-house.’

‘But I don’t want to. I’m playing with my bottles.’

‘Just leave them. They’ll be here when you get back.’

‘Do we get to join their club?’

‘Soon as we’ve done what they want.’

The girls walk through the Chin’s front yard and head towards Broken Bay Road, Alice wiping her paint stained fingers on her red jeans. ‘What do they want this time?’

‘I don’t know, but we’ll be the only girls allowed in the cubby. They don’t want Judith because she’s a bossy-boots.’

When they turn the corner, the boys are skylarking on Heather’s lawn. The house on the high side of the street has a large portico, trailing geraniums, and the name Emmanuel above the door. The dark house was a portal to games of Ali Baba, surprises in large wardrobes, hide and seek. After school, they switched the piano over to the Pianola, rolling scrolls of honky-tonk, Winifred Atwell ghosting the ivory keys. Mostly they dragged out the dolls, Snakes and Ladders, or Chinese Checkers. Alice liked the way her sandshoes rippled like sticky gum over the kitchen’s soft cherry lino. The larder was full of cream biscuits, Saos, cheese and Vegemite, and the backyard had a swing amongst orange, mandarin and loquat trees. Mr. Rundel had two vintage cars. The girls often sat in the dark green M.G. pretending to be Mole and Badger from Wind in the Willows. The Rundel’s were hardly ever home. René was either at the doctor’s or choral practice, and Heather’s father worked double shifts at the Mt. Penang Boys’ Home.

Alice thinks about the bottles sitting on the tank-stand and hopes they won’t discolour or smell. For a moment she imagines old Miles’ ginger cat smashing them on the concrete, or holiday arrivals tossing them out.

On an upper level to the road, the boys are karate chopping the spaces between the Rundel’s pickets. When the girls open the gate, they roll around each other like balls in a pinwheel. Jimmy struggles for air, while Fizz hooks him in a strangle hold, bending and moving knees towards the garden. Alice finds she‘s been tricked. ‘You boys are stupid.’

Looking at her, they collapse into a box hedge, four feet and arms lying belly up. Until they spring up from one another, hands held out flipper-like. They’re pumped and sweaty, prodding, corking knees and thighs. Fizz whirls Jimmy around, hugging him into his stomach. Facing the same direction, Fizz’s right foot locks into Jimmy’s soft thigh, heaving him onto the ground. With begging hands in the air, Jimmy stands in front of the girls, his flushed face matching the irritation in Alice’s eyes.

When they enter the back rooms of an outside flat, Heather cups her hand and giggles into Alice’s ear. ‘They want a root,’ she says, flashing her eyes boldly towards Jimmy.

‘You know what rooting is, don’t you?’

‘Yep,’ says Alice, looking puzzled over Heather’s shoulder at Fizz, his head bent to the floor. She gazes at him, moving her eyes rhythmically over his body, until they catch a quick glance from his.

‘Jimmy and I are going to do it in my bedroom. You and Fizz can go in there,’ says Heather, holding back doorway beads on an old iron bed in the corner.

Alice was alone with a boy she grew up with. They went to Sunday school together. She felt herself drawn along by Fizz’s sticky hands. She had a delicate sense that he must have liked her, so she let his tickling fingers find their way inside the elastic of her undies. She lay silent the whole time, stretching her bare legs like anchors into the shell-like pattern of the bed quilt. He tugged at his shorts and then she felt his stomach warm on hers. She liked the way their skin touched, his hand turning her head to kiss her beneath the eyes, but suddenly she shifted higher on the pillow and his forehead bumped the bridge of her nose. He held her face while his thin lips smacked into her mouth. It lasted so long Alice couldn’t breathe. Then he was telling her, ‘I’m glad you’re not wearing lipstick yet. I hate lipstick.’

Fizz no longer had a childish voice, he was moaning and groaning like one of Tarzan’s jungle animals. He was hard against her, bumping wildly in the air as if the veins in his arms were about to burst. He was wild and out of control. Alice just lay there thinking about the dogs she had seen in the street. The male did all the work. She wondered if the soldier crabs that carried one another on their backs were rooting as well. Fizz was poking her with his fingers, turning the little mound of flesh in and out, picking a point between her legs where he could wade deeper with his dick. She heard Heather’s girlish giggle on the back steps, heard the drag of matches. They had done it, she thought, and now Jimmy was letting Heather smoke his cigarettes. He thinks he’s so smart, like a cool Humphrey Bogart.

Fizz kept on and on, mooning over her, swooning and swaying, looking northward into the window, then back again, pushing his tongue into her mouth. His bottom rocked and his thighs circled and probed. Alice let the sensation wash over her as if the tossed bed was a tangle of seaweed. There she was gripped like a trawled fish. When he gave out little grunts and puffs of air, she thought of him caught in a rip, legs cramping in a full roll of surf. Then reaching the shallows, he raised his stringy body up and moaned as if coming out of the waves, exhilarated that he hadn’t drowned.

When he rolled off her, Alice thought that Fizz must love her. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever kissed her so tenderly. He was good at French kissing, he said. Sunday school drifted into her thoughts again, the mental picture of Mr. Pendlebury in the pulpit, his whispering voice hissing on and on about sin and damnation. She thought about Betty Parker’s wall print showing heaven and hell, Christ walking with the lions, and now here she was on another path, heading towards the gambling houses, where the corseted ladies sat at bars, where the fiery furnace enticed sinners. He must love me, she thought. Maybe he’s just being nice because I don’t have any tits. She found herself rambling. ‘I can’t find my pants, have you seen them? My other sandal is somewhere. When is your mother coming home? Don’t worry about the cubby. It’s dumb!’ But her questions were met with a piqued silence, as if her raw flesh, the kissing and fondling of her fanny had suddenly become the lost part of a Chinese whisper.

She scowled at Fizz. Had he forgotten she was there? He was shrugging his shoulders in front of the bureau mirror, flicking out a comb from his top pocket, peaking black hair into a Tony Curtis ducktail. All the smiles and niceties had disappeared. ‘So, it’s a big joke?’

Alice ran out the door, past Jimmy and Heather on the steps. She flung herself through the back gate, slamming it shut with her shoulder. Tiptoeing past Mr. Gettoes spraying his tomato plants, she skirted Mannings’ double garage, halting for a moment to slam the tree-house rope hard against the laddered steps. She moved quickly through the Chin’s wire fence, and crouched near the Zamias listening for any noise of holiday arrivals. Satisfied the house was empty, she settled herself inside the double toilet, cupped her face, digging her elbows into the tops of her legs.

She could hear the boys in the laneway, calling to her. She could have a free tour of the cubby. But she sat there in silence, her undies caught in a figure eight at her ankles. She heard Fizz talking to Jimmy. ‘What if she tells?’

‘No, she won’t. I know her.’

‘She’s not home, Jimmy!’ yelled Heather from the back porch. ‘Your mum says she’s with you.’

Just a few yards away at the back gate, Alice could hear the boys discussing the Ozone Café, or was it the beach? She didn’t dare move or pull on her panties just in case they heard the squeak of the lid, or her sandals on sand.

‘She’s probably sulking somewhere in a boat,’ said Heather.

When the afternoon had spread its country silence, Alice pulled up her panties, washed her hands at the little basin and emerged from the outhouse. The sky darkened under cloud and in the two hours while she was away the thick paint had bottomed in the glass. She noticed the split colours, how the water had turned a milky yellow or pink on top. She wondered what would happen if she put all the dark shades inside the bottles. Would the rich reds or green stay at the bottom while the inky colour floated on top? She opened the paint tin, oven-hot in the harsh sun. Some of the colours had run, the blues and yellows melting into a variegated-green slurry. She hadn’t used the charcoal, grey or black. They were still hard little rectangles. She scraped a small amount of water into them, and wiping the slush from the edges with a hanky, gouged deep holes with her paintbrush.

The grass whispered behind her. She didn’t pay attention to the ginger cat slinking under the house, a lizard sauntering the piebald stump or ants building tiny moon-craters in the broken concrete. The dog, tugging at the fence and running back and forth along the chicken wire, annoyed her. ‘Go away, Princey,’ Alice shouted. ‘Go play with your ball somewhere else, you stupid dog!’

The nature of things no longer interested Alice. She wanted to ruin the perfect rainbow colours, so she dripped black sludge into each bottle. ‘It’s just stupid to think you’d stay the same. Now you’re black, black, black!’

Bent over the stump, she made a sooty paste across the surface of her paint-tin, turning every pristine square to the colour of night. She didn’t hear the jingle of Heather’s bicycle, as she filled the bottles with black sand.

‘We were looking for you,’ said Heather.

‘I don’t care about the cubby,’ she said, defiantly.

‘Look, Alice, it’s just like playing doctors and nurses. Anyway, Fizz wants to talk to you.’

‘What for? ‘

‘Oh, come on! Come back. We all want to have a smoke.’

‘Did you do the drawback?’

‘I tried, but Jimmy’s going to show me how to blow smoke rings. Come on, please! I don’t want to be the only girl.’

Heather stomped her shoe on the bottom rung of the wire fence, urging Alice through the space stretched by her hands and feet. Alice looked back at the black stains on the bleached timber slats. A kind of gravity pulled her along. She’d liked the kissing part, but Heather just laughed about boys’ smelly armpits, turning the conversation to dark red lipstick and her new trainer bra. Alice could only wonder about the rubbing motion Fizz made between her legs, his sweaty face locked in little clicks, the pearl drops squeezed out and onto her belly.

Separation

Gary wiped his fingerprints from the front of his i-phone. Modern communication now had meant that Clarabelle could contact him anywhere, anytime. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Although the dry spinifex country could take a man to his knees, gasping, dust settling down on his dry bones, and he didn't want to be another statistic.

    ‘When are you coming home?’

    ‘I’m not sure, most likely at the end of the month.’

    'Gary, I need a date. Sylvia and Larry are coming all the way from Cloncurry and of course, they want to see you!'

   'What do they want to come to Perth for? There's plenty of other places they could visit England, New Zealand, America.'

   'They want to see Ben, too.'

   'Bloody hell. Do they know how important my work is?'

   'Are the new seeds taking?' she said quickly, as if to change the importance of the question with a quick breath.

   'The wind and the dry conditions haven't helped.'

     The Donkey Orchid, known as Duiris, is a genus of herbaceous plant belonging

     to the orchid family.

   He had been in the Kimberleys for three months, replanting the orchids, spreading seeds and looking for an undocumented species known as duiris flexiosa. Commonly known as puce flexiosa it was indeed rare. The main problem was that this miniature orchid with the big ears had profusely and unnaturally propagated with the 'Happy Wanderer' brachyscome multifida, a wild rambling ground cover that once it took over it was, you may guess, as stubborn as a mule.

    His main mission was to stop the donkey from bolting further off into the bush. Of course, it wasn't like that exactly; he wanted to stop the plant's migration, bringing it back to its original, non-variegated state.

      The Donkey Orchid is logically derived from the appearance of the two lateral

      petals, protruding from the top of the flower like the two ears of a donkey.

   Clarabelle rang him fortnightly at first, then every week, mainly to find out if he'd advanced further into the granite lobes and gorges. He told her he was still camped at Parry's Lagoon, collating, keeping his journal up-to-date. 'I'll head out soon as I've finished', he said. 'Stop calling me every five minutes, I don't have time to chat.'

Since the cattle musterers were planning a trip to Western Australia, he decided he could take his time in the gorges. He knew it wasn't all holiday for the Pratts. Oh, no! They'd be buying cattle for Georges Downes. He'd met Larry before on their Queensland holiday. It was always a hard slap on the back from big Larry with the Stetson. They can wait, he thought. I'll get lost for awhile, no mobile, battery gone. Heaven.

   The next morning he set out for Barren Mounds, along the Derby Gibb River Road. He had heard about an exotic orchid growing in the region, but botanists had almost given up on its whereabouts. He's seen them catalogued once in 1989, lime green dorsal petals, white wings, mauve lips.

     The hermaphoditic flowers grow solitary or in several-flowered loose racemes.   

     Colours vary from a lemon yellow, yellow and brown, yellow and purple, yellow and

     orange to pink and white or purple. The two lateral petals are rounded or elongated.

     The dorsal petal forms a hood over the column.

    When he was packing his outsource camp, he noticed that his rations were getting low and this year the cyclones hadn’t arrived to fill up known waterholes. It was another four hundred kilometres back to Fitzroy Crossing, so that wasn't an option he was willing to risk, time-wise. The Rodeo was on half empty, but the fuel gauge was as temperamental as his old grandfather's clock. It moved when it wanted to move. He had a spare thirty litres in the jerry can. It felt better in his head to know this. He had other things on his mind, circling around like a blow fly on Benzedrine. When he was packing the trailer with his small tent and his ground equipment, the barometer continually pointed to 'high and steady'. Two weeks into the trip and in these hot plains, especially the mountainous terrain, no matter what hour in daylight, he needed to know when the needle changed signaling wet weather.

   His water was low. He'd have to take small sips on his flask and cease shaving. He looked in the rear-view mirror at his growing stubble. His wire-mat of pin-prickles was already itching. He would be like dog every morning scratching every inch in an upward direction.

   He headed further north, the corrugation of the road almost bumping him out of the cab. This was always the way, once you left the main road, dust like cayenne pepper getting into the engine, air-conditioning vents, the nostrils. Such flat country he could make out the Barren Mounds in the distance. Upturned ochre pots baking in the sun. Further ahead, the gravel was thinning out into furrows of soft granules. He could see a mirage line trailing left to right across the road, never reaching the vehicle, always staying ahead like a veiled dewdrop.

   The Princess was calling. That's what he called the orchid, Princess Diana. His colleagues had said, 'lime green will never been seen.' But he had documented a similar variety of Duiris on his last trip to Mount Augustus, a yellow green with a white coronet at its crown. He managed to propagate several in his home laboratory. He loved touching the petals, opening the small lips of the orchid as if parting a beautiful woman's mouth. Diana, he knew, was somewhere in this crusty termite sand. He would find the buried tubers, take them back to Perth and prove that the donkey orchid could metamorphose into any prime colour.

   There seemed to be a slow stratagem of time before reaching the Mounds. Another five kilometres, he thought, but for now nature was calling and he had to obey.

   He climbed down from the driver's seat, upending a lopsided sign. He wiped his brow with the swipe of his hat, and took a large gulp of water. The earth was beginning to bake. He unzipped. The trickle of his urine darkened the spot into a little moon crater, disappearing as quickly as it came. He noticed a small gecko running into the low scrub. The sun began to sting his back and neck. Almost midday, the temperature had doubled since sunrise.

   He got back in the vehicle, clicked over the key. The engine chuckled at first, then stopped. He looked at the fuel gauge. It was pointing to 'E'. 'Fuck', he said, slamming both hands on the steering wheel. Then he had a searing thought as he uncovered the back flap, reaching in for the jerry can. He was out of mobile range, and with only thirty litres of fuel, he would never make it to Barren Mounds and back. Bloody GM! Why hadn't he fixed the gauge? He did everything else. Worked on Clarabelle's Mazda when he was home, changing the oil, spark plugs, filters, under the bonnet changing the brake fluid. 'Four-wheel drives are meant to be tough', she had said. It will outlast you, was her other mantra.

   'Fucking hell! It goes if it's bloody got petrol.'

   He kicked the tyres with his boots, hopping back in a rebound. When he had finished filling the tank, he cranked up the engine, spinning his tyres into an arc, his right foot depressed hard, his body pulsing forward and back.

   He made it to a roadhouse along the Derby Gibb River Road, close to Fitzroy Crossing. He felt washed-out and dirty, so he decided to end the trip, go back home and catch up with the Pratts. This was what she wanted. He would be in Clarabelle's big smiley books once again.

*      *      *

He pulled into the driveway and noticed a hire car parked outside the garage. The Pratts were already there. He needed a shower, so rather than going into the main house, he went down the side to the pool's outdoor shower.  He scrubbed his body of every grain of red sand, shaved and changed into some boxer shorts and a Hawaiian shirt that Clarabelle meticulously arranged for guests. The perfume of the body gel was a welcome change to his usual odour of sweat and stale hormones.

   He opened the back door, placing his duffle-bag on the tiled floor in the kitchen. He thought he would be greeted by the three of them in the lounge room, clinking glasses of champagne. He couldn't hear any conversation or laughter. He checked the gazebo down the back. It was often a cool space when entertaining. Only the birds in the aviary greeted him. He went back inside the house, opened the fridge and poured himself a beer. His head began to free-fall, time to get into the sack.  He thought he could get some quick shut-eye before they came home, from wherever they were, out shopping or walking along the river. He went upstairs in his bare feet. He opened the door of the bedroom. Two bumps lay in the bed. Two bodies clutched, moaned, a bare arse going into spasms.

   'Clarabelle,' he yelled. 'What the fuck!'

   And there he was, the cattle owner, suddenly turning around from his prostrate position, his face and body reddening in the split second that Gary had stood there, the man muttering profusely, his Stetson covering the front view of his family jewels.

       Pollination is by native, small bees, lured to flowers mimicking flowers of the pea

       family. The fruit is non-fleshy, containing 30-500 minute seeds. These seeds mature

       in a matter of weeks.   

                                                                         *     *     *

Bittersweet

Wednesday afternoon, and the ice-cream van melted.

     It was another fine spring morning with a slight sea breeze, so Karla decided to walk to Sean’s apartment instead of catching the bus. After yesterday’s madness the walk of twelve kilometres there and back would help; her mind going round and round endlessly, without a plan. Placing her blue Converse sneakers on slowly, she slipped each foot in, looping the two laces together like two halves of a heart.

     In the town centre, her shoes joined a thousand other shoes and were lost. At the corner of Hosken and Marine Terrace, when most of the traffic had disappeared, mothers being swallowed by Target or K-Mart, she stopped, lifting her water bottle from her backpack and drinking a third of the way down.

   As if looking over her shoulder, she could see the previous day’s mess, still feeling the sharp sting of cold. She wished she hadn’t invited him over. He was quiet at first, but soon his smile turned to a menacing furrow when they didn’t have Strawberry Ripple or French yoghurt. She had offered him Banana-Mango but that had disappeared down her chest. He pretended to kiss her as he opened her t-shirt. She wanted to call him names, instead she laughed lightly as she flapped out the cotton material, letting the ice-cream cone slip to the floor.  That hadn’t really worried her, not as much as the mystery of the pulled power lead.

    It was nine-thirty five when she arrived at the top of the hill, past the beer factory and the children’s playground. To her left she could see the fishermen assembling their cray pots, freezer trucks backing up and loading. Steam rose from the estuary. It wasn’t morning mist, but a wet haze from the humidity of the night before. Further out, the light shone on the water like a million dancing pearls.

     She could have stayed there, watching the morning’s activities, a soccer team on the oval, people walking their dogs. Instead, she continued on, her sneakers making a clapping rhythm on the concrete path.

     He had taught her the guitar, at first playing a few chords. He was constant in his attention at how she held the instrument close to her body, moving her fingers along the fretwork.

     Each day she went to his apartment, it was sex, then the guitar. Sex and guitar, in that order. Never guitar and sex.

     Sometimes she just wanted to sit and chat over a cup of coffee, or play with the kitten he’d found in the park. But no! He undressed her slowly at first in the living room, led her by the hand to the bed, gripping her undies off with his teeth. One day he did this very act, pouring some yoghurt from a large tub over her bare stomach. He licked the liquid up to her face before smacking his sour lips into hers.

    She didn’t like yoghurt. All yoghurt was good for was ‘verdigris’ as Aunt Lucy put it, showing her how to a ge some copper pots. She would never eat it after that.

     Sean had funny ways like singing with his hands over his ears. In the six weeks she had known him he said there were things she’s find out later on. ‘Secrets,’ he said, ‘just wait and see.’ She never found out what he did for work. Only that he played some nights at the X-Ray Café. Now the band was looking for a drummer, so the guys hadn’t been around in all that time.

     As she walked down the hill, she could see his upstairs window. It was strangely quiet, not one car in the street. She thought that perhaps being a Thursday the pensioners who lived in the same building must be out shopping or paying their bills.

     She crossed to the other side of the street and stood in the shade of a Poinciana. His blue Corolla wasn’t down the side, either. She curled her hand gently around her water bottle, the fingers on her left hand, prickling. She poured water on them to relieve the sting and her sweaty palms.

     She knocked on his door three times, but there was no answer, so she walked away.

   Back at the house, her father lay sleeping on the couch. She took out the mop, some sponges and a bucket, sloshing water on the floor of the van. A gooey splodge of Vanilla ran down the vending machine, the choc-bits leaving a track of sticky pebbles on the linoleum and towards the door. The Banana-Mango had painted the van’s upholstery yellow. She continued cleaning the mess, thinking over her original plan, then another thought bubble loomed.

    The next day she went to the supermarket, to the freezer section. She’d never bought it before and was surprised to see so many varieties and flavours; small tubs in packs of six, some in twos, or single. Each brand stacked neatly together on the shelves above the mousse, whipping cream, butter and margarine. She didn’t see his favourite, but thought the large tub with the picture of mixed berries on the front would be just the thing. 

    It was late when she arrived at his place. She could hear a loud thumping coming from his amp. Sean was in the living room just inside the front door. She could hear him and two other males, the highs and lows of their voices travelling around the room. She listened with her ear up against the wall. A microphone pinged incessantly, until it stopped. Guitars tweaked into a metallic wail of strings. Then the deafening din of drums smashed and rolled into a quick flurry, making her jump back in fright.

    She hunched down over her bag, pulling out a piece of paper, then a paint brush. She opened the large tub of Wildberries, wiping the edge with a tissue.  She stood up and began painting the door with the yoghurt. It dribbled down over the surface and handle, leaving a residue of tiny giblets of fruit; a Jackson Pollock slap-on of blueberries on mission brown. When she finished she stood back, away from the noisy thunder inside. It hadn’t worked as well as she thought, so she pulled the door mat away, wiping up the trail of dirt behind. Then she poured the rest of the Wildberries slowly along the groove and into the small gap under the door. She pushed the coir mat back up against the creamy substance that was beginning to ooze and trickle in all directions.

    She balled the piece of paper up into her hands, pinging it high in the air. It rolled and went out of sight as she went down the stairs.

Published in Jukebox - an OOTA anthology

*     *     *

Aunt Vagna & 9/11

I arrived at 7 am. The day clear in the falls and shadows of buildings; a cloudless Autumn. The Autumn they executed James Elledge Holte, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. It was a culture shock at first, standing on the corner of Fourth and Lafayette, the busy traffic rumbling by, taxis hooting from the kerb, a truck driver yelling abuse to an open hood, steam hissing from an old Pontiac. I could hardly see the open sky, buildings so tall they shaded every arterial road of the city. What day was it? I could only guess without my glasses that history was happening on the front page of the New York Times. Large black lettering spelling out “WITNESS TO AN EXECUTION”. I felt sick at the thought of the words ‘lethal injection’, and Aunt Vagna’s name. Was she related to this Holte? I would soon find out.

   She lived in an apartment on Madison Avenue and I had three hours to kill before I could see her. What did Aunt want from me? Why the sudden trip to New York and on top of everything paying my fare from London to Hong Kong? Finding the funds myself for the rest of the journey. She was ostensibly the richest woman in the family. They said, she draped fur and diamonds, had shares in General Motors and AT&T. But she never contacted any of the family. Father said, she was afraid that everyone would sponge, come after her wealth when they didn’t deserve it. So they left her alone.

   I remained suspicious, but curious.

   I sat in an alfresco coffee shop in one of the quieter streets, about two blocks away from her apartment. A sliver of sun shone down between the skyscrapers and I was able to pick up the paper and read the front page without my glasses. I must have left them in the subway when I was juggling my backpack, discarding the paper bags, making my luggage compact. After all, I was on foot, the pack heavy with books, the jewel box and photographs. I knew, looking at the congested streets, that I could pace myself around the city much quicker than hailing a cab. I could carry my briefcase and leave my luggage in a locker, come back for it in the evening.

   Free of the weight, I stretched my legs under the table. The waiter, speaking to me in a German brogue, brought the last cup of coffee I could manage. I asked him about the Trade Centre and he drew a map on my serviette. I tore the map’s corner, placing it in my wallet.

   I knew Vagna had one of her flower shops near the Twin Towers. Perhaps, that’s where she was. She couldn’t be in the Manhattan store, or Greenwich Village; that would take her past lunchtime to meet me. Really, I didn’t know where she was.

   It wouldn’t hurt to visit the shop. I opened my journal and looked for the address. Pushing my way through the crowds, I felt a tug on my coat lapel. I clasped my hands tighter on the briefcase. Feeling that sensation against my jacket was odd, yet slight enough not to suspect anything. Then I tapped my pocket. The horror of its emptiness made my stomach rise, only to have my lungs knock hard against each other. Or so it felt. Bastards! The two had pinched my wallet, the one in front pleading a synthetic ‘sorry’, the other quickly lost in the distorted view of heads.

   I decided to forget about Aunt Vagna’s flower shop. I needed that wallet, especially the map, so I back-tracked along the pavement, lifting my head intermittently above the crowd to see if I could catch the swift footwork of the two pickpockets.

   At a newsstand, I asked the guy behind a stack of magazines if he’d seen two young men in baseball caps and moccasins. He just answered, ‘Seen one, seen em all, Pal.’

   I was devastated. Map lost. No money. No credit cards. I’d have to report it. I tried the alleys, hoping the same two might be waiting for me again, especially for the briefcase. They didn’t know I had something valuable that I could bargain with.

   In a cardboard-stacked alley, a Chinese cook emptied a pail of fish heads into a dumpster. The stench moved me on. I crossed over the main street to the other side, taking my weary legs down several sidestreets.

   I thought a storm had sprung up, the sky darkened suddenly, people were running everywhere pointing, shouting, covering their mouths with newspapers. Some were running backwards, elbows bent across their faces. I poked my head out from the cool shadows into what I thought was a dust storm. The empty space between buildings was swamped in plumed lips like an atomic bomb. There was a loud crack and a roar in the air I’d never heard before. This time I could see the smoke lathered grey and pink filling Broadway. I watched shoes landing on the pavement, reams of paper haunting the grey-cloud drizzle. I knew I had my mouth wide open. I felt charcoal on my tongue, the full taste of it seeking my lungs. It clotted my hair with ash fallout. I was inside a nightmare on Canal Street, a strange movie reeling itself away before my eyes. This was not Godzilla trampling and crushing buildings with his enormous footfalls. This was devastation, Bruce Willis’s panic city – no twins – a gaping hole left in the sky. Sirens, alarms, the noise was deafening. People were screaming, crying. They hollered, turning me like a globe to run. I couldn’t move. I could only think of Aunt Vagna and her flower shop near the Trade Centre. The building now full of flames, falling glass, storey after storey crashing into the streets of New York.

   New York was falling apart.

*     *     *

Percy Wright's Carousel

The horses are green and scarred. We are gazing at Percy Wright's carousel seventy-odd years from its turning. Voices travel on radio waves, and we hear the volley of summer, think of women mingling at the water's edge, a lifeguard above our heads in a little yellow cap.

Somewhere in the heart of the room we enter an old era. Leanne moves through the corridor dressed in a floral dress, wearing cork sandals; her red polished toenails entering daylight. I look equally like her couture, except I’m wearing autumn prints in rayon to mid-calf with a Peter Pan collar.

We do not miss our part of town as we walk along the jetty, climbing grass dunes scattered with firs. Carnival shouts, sounds of tent pegs, a horizon of mirrors! Horses with clumps of flaxen hair rock back and forth, braced on metal hangers.

Leanne says, 'This is a great aperture for making art.'

'In Paris,' I say, ‘Eugène Atget photographed a dying era as artifact; an organ grinder, satyrs, a brass carousel with bulls and decorative cups.'

We move on through myth, into the canvas of street fairs and sideshows; the freaks of carnival. This is their home, their location. They do not move, and only when the organ begins do they smile gently as we pass.

In the background, the operator lights a cigarette, and his smoke merges into a distant factory’s plume that disappears into tiny clouds above us. Young women are languid on the carousel in beach kimonos & skirts, clutching horses. Some link arms as if on a Sunday stroll. Leanne and I watch them laughing, placed there together, as if they are the rare smiles of our mothers and grandmothers arranged in sepia.

Out in the air trombones pulse; the wind begins a slow refrain through the scaffold of horses. The silky women slip like soap from saddles, rhythmically lifting and lowering their buttocks around the gallopers. We laugh at their antics.

Leanne says, ‘Soon they will raise their skirts above their knees and kick out a Charleston.’

South Beach 1932; the day shifting like a seagull on Percy Wright’s Carousel, a foreshore of miniature cars, hot dogs, Hoop-la, and porcelain clowns. An aroma of hot tea and smells of sawdust trail through the courtyard, and the women are still smiling. Their faces float past, and the music begins again.

I do want to be beside the seaside. Oh, I do want to be beside the sea.

The trees swoosh by, the grass beneath our feet, as our hands trace images across the way: an ice-cream van, a shooting gallery, lucky wheel, a man arranging carnival toys. We sway, our heads cocked back, looking up at the sky, clanging our garish horses until the paint peels. The trumpets and cymbals falling soft as a mist on a bald mountain; carnival's razzle-dazzle winding down its pulse, vivid stripes of fringed stalls and tents abandoned in the failing light. 

Raising the tent-flap, we watch the women swing arms over a distant hill, and as the clouds couple at dusk, our path downhill leads us through shadows, our bodies silhouetted before us.

I say to Leanne, 'What did you enjoy the most?'

'Letting go of the red and green balloon,' she says, 'and how the rippled shoreline left holes at our feet.'

*     *     *

Life is Not a Box of Lamingtons

 

Sarah rolled over, moaned and hugged her pillow. She wanted to slip back into the shadows, back into the memory and desire. He was the object of her pursuit. She had taken him there in the shadows. In the dark she had lost all inhibition, pressing herself against him on the brick wall of the dark alley. She was where she wanted to be, at the base of his body guiding him to her. In the short moments of her desire the mind had played tricks on her, suddenly it teased him forward, then turned him around, then finally, faded him out like mist.

The door opened and the morning light streamed across her bed. Then a heavy, solid shape opened the window and the breeze rattled the verticals.

   We're out of coffee!

   What time is it?

   Ten past six.

   Sarah pulled the blankets over her head. This was all too much. She wanted privacy. Aaaargh! she groaned. She wanted to slip back into the dream - into the memory of his sex. She had seen him somewhere before; gold earring, ponytail, but this guy didn't have red hair.

   I can't wait with breakfast all day, called her mother.

   Sarah let the hot water of the shower soak into her skin. She wrote the word resign into the misted glass. Combing her long wet hair, she emptied a large suitcase on her bed. The idea of her own place made her smile. She was cooking a meal for two, feeding birds and her own dog. She was opening a large door to a backdrop of ghost gums. Walking in the bush gathering banksia cones. Now the two of them were running, jumping logs and stopping to hold hands. This was all she could think of, holding a young male body close to hers, smelling the freshness of his long hair, touching the traces of her dream.

   She counted the notes and coins in her purse and looked at a faded bank slip. Suddenly she felt a sense of guilt. With father gone, she would be another one to hurt, twist the knife. It was only a saying that 'a mother could look after five children, but the five children couldn't look after one mother.' She had been loyal. She had tried to please, tried to ease a mother's pain, but father's leaving hadn't equipped her for those horrible loud, incessant wails at night.

   Mother. She was the problem. She couldn't talk to her any more about anything, not even the nightmares of the job. Her life was filled with police jargon, she lived it, breathed it. Her short sharp answers were like metal shavings falling from the rigours of her day. Days that were filled with frustration. It was her way of letting go, but this was a language mother could not tolerate. So, when the friction eased after the slamming and rattling of teatime dishes they found solace together in criticizing TV soapies or lambasting the cruel pranks on 'the funniest home video show.'

   Sarah gazed out of the window into the incredible day. She couldn't understand how the northern suburbs, once sparse and quiet, had suddenly become inundated with criminal and traffic offenses. Even as far north as Gingin some streets harboured lives of misery. She had hoped that it hadn't reached Jurien Bay, the holiday haven of her childhood. But the long hours were getting to her and this was not how she wanted to live.

Choices. She had choices to make. She scanned the newspaper columns. Turning to the situations vacant, she frowned on words like sales trainees, accounts payable and telemarketers. Carella stood beside her and quietly reached in and folded her newspaper.

   Time to go - another break in!

   They walked past a young child leaning on the boot of a car, silent, except for the sucking of fingers. A smile came as Constable Sarah Maitland crouched and removed her blue cap. Eye level with the child, she saw a little blonde girl in a photograph sitting on her father's lap.

   Where's mummy? asked Sarah.

   A wet finger poked the air.

   You're not lost are you?

   The child gurgled and jiggled, then ran towards a woman in a blue-spotted dress. The woman quickly pulled the child to her hip. Whingeing about the queues at the check-out and the so and so's, she avoided the reproachful eyes of Carella.

   Take the child in with you next time, cautioned Carella.

   Back in the panel-van, Sarah clipped her belt and tucked the newspaper under her seat.

   Looking for a flat?

   No! -  I can't believe that woman!

   Sure, you were. I saw you.

   The two-way crackled.

   We're on our way Serge, over!

   Sarah watched the mother strapping the child into a safety seat.

   I'll ring Lance, the youngest brother. He's the new caretaker in one of those new Joondalup studio apartments. They're not bad and they're only one hundred and twenty a week.

   I might not want to live in Joondalup, said Sarah, watching the woman indicate as she was watching her.

   Sure you do, close to work.

   The two-way clicked in.

   Yes, Serge, yes, yes! It's just thick, over!

   Find Seacrest for me please. The woman's pretty upset. He's got a thing about thick hair, you know? All us Carellas have thick hair. Thicka Italian hair eh?

They arrived at a house at the end of the street. Leaving the car, Maitland screwed her face at Carella.

   I'm not introverted. I like the quiet, maybe Two Rocks or Yanchep.

   I'd have to drive you all that way.

   Carella pressed a lifeless doorbell. An English voice greeted them from behind a security screen.

   Come in duckies. I was out shopping. I thought something seemed odd, you know queer like and then I saw it, in the hallway, well!

   What did you see, Madam?

   My son's CD's and our hi-fi stuck in their bag. Well, when I walked into the kitchen there they were. Right little devils, eating my lamingtons!

   Lamingtons?  asked Sarah, raising her eyelids.

   Yes, I made them for the school tuck shop. Here have one.

   Carella put both hands in the air. Sarah held the lamington over a plate.

   Lamingtons.  They were a sign of her school days. Bought at the school fete or they sat near the coconut ice on tables in the Girl Guide hall. She had taken them with a friend to her grandmother's house, where the sticky bits floated in sauces of weak tea, while they giggled at Oma's raucous laugh. Mrs. Meyer was a treasure, but more a treasured memory of German culture, embroidered linen, Mozart and Brahms. Sarah remembered her long hallway of fine china and wall hangings and rooms full of musty, old books. Most of all she remembered the sweet cadence of her words like liebchen, schuss and schnugglemouse.

   Carella coughed loudly. You all right Constable?

   Yes, I'm fine, fine. If we could have your name please, for the record - Mrs?

   Wade, Angela.

   Mrs. Wade related the incident with the two intruders. They had cut the flywire in the kitchen window and left black sand in the sink and on her floor. One had rushed past her, and out the door. The other boy had also tried. She ran after him she said, yelling to come back and clean up the mess. She managed to grab him and struggled with him on the front lawn. Then she tied him up with some old rope from the back shed.

   You mean he's still here?

   Both officers walked down the path. In a corner of the yard, tied with thick rope was a boy, red faced and struggling to get free.

   What's your name son? queried Carella

   You've got bad breath, spat the boy.

   Watch it. You know you're in big trouble. Where do you live?

   Around.

   Ha! A know-all at ten.

   Carella unwound the boy and bundled him into the car. 'Yes Serge, we're bringing the little spitfire in now, over!'

   Sarah remained quiet. She wasn't pleased with herself. She had told Carella about leaving home and hadn't wanted to, not yet anyway. Now he was organising everything, taking her to some apartments after their shift. The lamington stuck somewhere. She couldn't look at the boy. How many had she seen like this? She lost count. She was somewhere else, packing and unpacking; handing money over to a man with thick dark hair, turning on her telly, cooking dinner in her microwave. Opening a door to the young man with long hair.

Sergeant Magee swivelled his chair behind a large desk, his face furrowed, his fists were tight. Sarah hoped she would never have his hard heart. She wandered away from inquest and the finger printing process.

   Suddenly the boy made a dash for the automatic door, and they were after him, bolting through and out the building. Sarah had lapsed into a daydream and any concentration of holding the boy and keeping him in her gaze had vanished into forests of old ghost-gums, hollyhocks and timbered cottages.

   Unforgivable! yelled Magee.  We've got him, but no thanks to you. Get your mind back into gear Maitland. It should be here in Wanneroo not on holiday somewhere!

   One of the officers interrupted.

   I've had that lady on the blower Serge at thirteen Seacrest. Says she's changed her mind about pressing charges. Said something about doing her Christian duty, charity, forgiveness and all that.

   Sarah relaxed her shoulders. It was over. She couldn't look anyone in the face. She felt humiliated. Tired. Downtrodden. She handed in her report sheet and left through the front door. Carella came after her. Told her to relax. Not to worry. It was just a job. No big deal. Magee will be calmer in the morning. Carella held her chin and wiped a tear from under her eye.

   Come on, we're going to those apartments I told you about.

They walked down the brick paving of the newly landscaped apartments. The two-storey building of cream brick in a paintwork of blues and creams and French lattice sparkled under a cloudless sky. A young man washing his car waved. Sarah's jaw dropped and a hot surge rushed and flushed her skin. Carella introduced Lance. Lance with the big smile. Lance with the thick dark hair and ponytail. Lance with the earring. Sarah froze and blushed from cheek to cheek.

   Sarah, Lance. Lance, Sarah. grinned Carella.

She climbed the steps. Turned the key slowly in the front door. Walked into the lounge room. Turned on the light. She could hear the heavy breathing coming from the family room couch. She read a note under a fridge magnet. They were out of milk. LASAGNA IN THE OVEN. Reaching down into her bag she pulled out a piece of paper. Picked up the cordless handset of the telephone and walked into her bedroom. Lance's number stared up at her like rows and rows of street numbers that led to dark alleyways. She dialed the first three, then clicked it down. She balled the piece of paper round and round in the palm of her hand.

   No! She thought. I can't leave her. Not now. I haven't got the heart.